


Helping Hand

by LittleLinor



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, background Babd/Ungai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 13:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14594100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/pseuds/LittleLinor
Summary: With nothing to seek revenge for anymore, Luard directs his knowledge and talent towards mending his mistakes instead. Somehow, he ends up mending relationships too.





	Helping Hand

**Author's Note:**

> I reread what I could of the lores, but I'm not The Expert on Nubatama, so please forgive me if I made any real mistakes T.T

“How does it feel?” Luard asked, looking determinedly _not_ at his patient's face, the rim of his hat shielding him from view.  
There was a reason he'd kept it despite how inconvenient it was in the cramped space inside.  
Shiranui gave a thoughtful hum that in his voice sounded more like a growl than anything (not that Luard could talk, with the way he'd gradually kept bits and pieces of mannerisms here and there after each full dragshift) and spread his arm in front of him, almost making him jump.  
The fingers extended. Flexed. Extended again. As Luard gave a sigh of relief, Shiranui turned his arm palm-up and closed his fist again.  
“It's functioning perfectly,” he said, his expression unreadable.  
“… but does it _feel_ fine?” Luard asked again, more quietly.   
Shiranui didn't answer straight away. Unable to bear the pressure, Luard finally gave up and looked up at him.  
He was smiling. Or so Luard thought, anyway—sometimes it was hard to tell, with dragons. A smile and a snarl were only a hair's width away.  
“It doesn't feel the same, but it's not uncomfortable,” Shiranui said once he had Luard's full attention. “Certainly less awkward than walking in a human body felt.”  
Luard wondered, not for the first time, how different going from dragon to human felt compared to dragshifting. But before he could distract himself with it, Shiranui reached forward with his new hand and laid it on one of Luard's own, where it was—he only noticed how—resting tightly fisted on his own thigh.  
“Thank you,” Shiranui said.  
“It—it's the least I can do,” Luard muttered, hiding under his hat again.  
Silence fell. Outside, a few people let out cries of excitement—Babd had probably decided to entertain people with her magic skills again. Luard was still surprised that she'd asked to come with him, and the way she always had that one dragon glued at the hip made him question whether her excuse of protecting him 'just in case' had been her main reason, but he had to admit that he felt safer with her there. Not just for her experience and proficiency with magic, but because so often Babd knew what to _say_ to people.   
Or when two people would probably need some privacy for technical work and awkward conversations.  
“… I tried to make it stealthy,” Luard finally started saying—or babbling, if he was completely honest. “I was going to make it more stylish, and the magic tends to glow anyway, but then I remembered you're supposed to be a _stealth_ dragon and—I thought—I know you don't right now, but—if you ever… want to go on missions again… I don't want that to give you away— _anyway_! I can still alter the colour if you want, I'll just need a bit of time so the magic settles properly, so please tell me ahead of time if you want some changes.”  
“Noise would be much more of an issue, and this is perfectly silent. Don't worry about it. Although,” he added in a lighter voice, pulling his hand back, “it's true glowing pink and blue would probably clash with the rest of my outfit.”  
Luard nodded.  
“… I'll get to work on the leg when I get back,” he said quietly. “I wanted to make sure the arm worked properly first.”  
“Isn't an arm more complex?” Shiranui asked, moving it around slowly to test its movement range.  
“It is… but you already have something to stand on,” he said, nodding towards Shiranui's more simplistic wooden prosthetic. “I thought giving you use of your two hands was more important. And that way I can make adjustments before making something that has to hold your weight, and then based on the data from _that_ , I can make final tweaks to the arm again so it can support or pull you if you need to subject it to more extreme conditions again.”  
Shiranui chuckled.  
“Ever the technician. But it's true… I _have_ missed having the use of two hands.”  
Luard stared at him.  
“… did I say something strange?” Shiranui asked.  
“… I didn't expect you to say something like that,” Luard answered, all too conscious of his own bluntness.  
“You often seem to miss what people are saying to you unless they're said clearly. I thought it best to make my thoughts known.”  
With a groan, Luard pulled his hat down over his face.  
“Please do not tell my clanmates, however,” Shiranui continued. “I've tried my best not to let them see how much this was bothering me, or they would never cease coddling me.”  
“I see. I won't say anything.” He paused. “… I don't think I could, anyway.”  
“… are you still afraid to talk to them?”  
“How could I not be? I killed their friends.”  
Silence fell. Luard kept looking at the ground, all too conscious of Shiranui's eyes on him.  
“… I won't pretend that what happened doesn't matter,” Shiranui finally said, after a few long moments during which Luard felt himself wither more and more, “but I think that if you could forgive me for your brother's death, they can find it in themselves to forgive you for this.”  
“But—”  
“I won't force them or instruct them to do so. But I think more than a few have already forgiven you. If you have the courage to face those who still resent you, then you might actually get to know those who don't.”  
“You make it sound so easy,” he mumbled. “… you were being controlled anyway. How could I keep hating you for that?”  
“I recall being told you once held a completely different view.”  
“… yeah. And I was wrong. And that's _exactly_ the kind of thing they shouldn't forgive me for.”  
“It isn't up to you whether people should or shouldn't forgive you.”  
Luard opened his mouth. Then closed it, feeling incredibly stupid, in large part for being struck dumb in front of Shiranui of all people.  
With Morfessa, at least, he was used to the embarrassment.  
“You were manipulated too,” Shiranui continued as Luard failed to find a comeback. “I myself would not have been in a position to let them control me had I not been drunk on anger and desperate for revenge. Our situations were not so different.”  
Outside, someone walked past the door, laughing and chatting loudly, before melting into the rest of the ambient voices.  
“… our clan understands the pain of losing those we hold dear. That loss is the very foundations on which we build it. We understand the anger and the helplessness. The revenge.” He reaches for Luard again. “But if all this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have remembered the real reason I became this clan's leader in the first place.”  
“… and that is?” Luard asked after a few tense seconds.  
“So I could protect them. I failed my first clan, because I was too naive, and too weak to protect them. And then I almost failed this clan by putting my pain first and trusting those who were using it. By forgetting what a leader is. But now I remember.”  
“… they still want you as leader, you know,” Luard muttered, for lack of something better to say. “I overheard them talk yesterday.”  
To his surprise, Shiranui burst out laughing.  
“Oh, I'm aware. One of them will ask every few days.”  
“… they really do love you,” Luard blurted out, still shocked by his laugh.  
“I have done little to deserve it, but since they won't change their mind, I have no choice but to protect them as best as I can.”  
Despite his words, his voice was fond, and for a second Luard was struck with a painful, bittersweet sense of familiarity. Tears almost made it to his eyes, and he had to press his arm on them for a second.  
“Luard?”  
“It's fine. I'm fine.”  
“Did I say something to upset you?”  
“No. I'm just…”   
He hesitated. This memory was personal, precious, something he'd been cherishing in silence and hanging on to to give himself the strength to go on. But on the other hand, he owed Shiranui more than he could ever hope to repay.  
He wondered for a second if he could find it in himself to talk about this and found, to his surprise, that he could. That at some point in the months between the first time they had met after he was freed and the present moment, he'd come to trust him. That now, Shiranui was someone in whom he could confide, and the familiarity hit him again, because there had only been one person in his life that he trusted to that level before.  
“… when you freed me from Gyze's hold,” he said, quietly, “my Big Bro spoke to me.”  
Shiranui stared at him. He took a deep breath and kept going, not quite looking at him.  
“It was only for a moment… his soul was able to reach me, and I could talk to him… he woke me up and gave me the strength to fight.”  
Slowly, as he struggled to find his words, Shiranui nodded.  
“… he said that before he met me, he didn't really care about anything,” Luard continued quietly. “That taking care of me and protecting me gave him a reason to live.”  
“… I see.” He stayed silent for a moment, and Luard couldn't make himself meet his eyes. “… he and I could have understood each other.”  
“… I don't get you. I don't get _either_ of you. How do you… why… is all that really worth giving your life for it?” he finally let out, the words coming before he could stop them.  
Shiranui stared at him. For a second, Luard almost felt like standing up and leaving, rather than face the answer to his question.  
“… let me ask you something,” Shiranui said. “When you fought in that battle, after I was hit, were you not trying to protect others? That Gear Chronicle dragon child and the warrior maiden who fought with the power of flowers?”  
“Well… I did… but I owed them… and I looked up to them. I wanted to help. That's different.”  
“Being given the right and the strength to protect is a privilege. When we lead others, we cannot afford to be weak, so their belief makes us stronger. It gives us purpose.” He paused, shortly, his eyes straying to the window. “The trust those we watch over give us is precious. It's more than a responsibility. It is a gift. And one that is all too easily lost.” He looked towards Luard again. “It is absolutely worth risking one's life, or even giving it. Protecting is a purpose in itself.”  
Luard looked at him, stunned by his words. Slowly, anger began to rise in him, anger not unlike the one he had felt when Shiranui put down his weapons in front of him, when he was still hungry for revenge.   
The attempted sacrifice had infuriated him then and it still did now. But for a completely different reason.  
“How can you…”  
Shiranui looked at him and blinked in surprise and Luard's anger burst like a cork flying from an overpressured flask, words leaving him before he could even think them.  
“You… you and him both, you just don't _get it_! You think you can just protect people and be on your way and not matter? Do you think we'd just move on, like—like a baby bird from its parents? Do you have any idea what it's like to lose someone you look up to?” Shiranui stared. Before he could stop himself, Luard stood and pointed at him accusingly. “If you _really_ want to protect someone, then you gotta _be there to watch over them_!”  
He stopped, winded by his own indignation, and suddenly realised the position he was in, standing and pointing and yelling at the sitting Shiranui.  
Forget baby birds, he definitely felt as silly as a child. Maybe he _should_ leave before Shiranui laughed at him or told him off for his rudeness.  
He stayed suspended in indecision long enough for his eyes to drift back to Shiranui's face. And to his surprise, the shock on it changed, as their eyes met, to an amused smile.  
(Or so he hoped. Again, it was hard to tell with dragons, sometimes)  
“Is that so? Then maybe you should remind me of it so I don't forget again.”  
Luard's breath and words tangled themselves in his mouth.  
“Wh—I—no— _what_!?”  
“It seems I've been missing something crucial. If you really do still want to make amends to me, then that is my request.”  
Luard stayed dumbstruck, stuck between shock and fluster and—part of him rose up, offended: why did he have to word it like _that_ , how was Luard ever supposed to refuse after that—and just unable to tear his eyes away, and no evil eye had anything to do with it.  
Shiranui, meanwhile, stayed perfectly impassive. Confident, almost. How he could appear so confident when he'd basically just told Luard that his strength was artificial, Luard had no idea, but it irritated him about as much as it made him want to rely on it, and he hated both equally.  
Or so he tried to tell himself, but as Shiranui held out his (new, strong, slightly cool but smoothely coloured) hand up towards him, he found himself taking it, holding it as Shiranui pulled himself up to his level and then his full height, towering over him.  
He was still completely serious, and Luard felt his resistance fall away.  
“… okay.”  
It only lasted for a fraction of second, but Shiranui smiled.  
“Shall we go show everyone this new arm, then? It is a work of art.”  
Luard nodded, and followed him out, hiding behind the rim of his hat again.


End file.
